Examining Management Consultancy Practices That Go Beyond Customised Packages

The aim of this paper is to examine the means by which management consultants communicate and distribute their advice to clients. The paper argues that the use of consultancy packages, or, popular ideas have dominated the way we think about consultants and their role in the dissemination of knowledge in the literature. By drawing on empirical evidence we demonstrate how current consulting practices diversify from rigidly following specific business models/fads, and how consultants generate their advice in a more fluid and unstructured way in order to meet the client’s needs. In this context we demonstrate how a key contribution by the consultant is in helping the client provide a clear conceptualisation over the issues faced, accompanied with confidence for alternative solutions, or, ways of responding. The consultants’ knowledge of the market also impacts how the consultants formulate and justify their claims through acclaimed evidence. Even though, at this point, particular models may be used by consultants to communicate their knowledge to clients it is not clear to what extent this is part of a broader management fad, or, a creation by the individual consultant in dealing with the specific problem. However, the situated rationality between the consultant and client becomes the very context of discussion and the shaping of perspectives for what is feasible and what isn’t. At this point, the paper argue how consultants often persuade clients because of a logical ‘rational’ that helps them define the problem and provide clear solutions that legitimises their knowledge service. The play between claims and evidence in this context, needs to be further examined for how innovative the consultants’ propositions to clients are ,and, how feasible is to implement them.